pre-development phase, which Thomas says
must lead to a clear definition of the aircraft
by the second half of next year. He says that
MPC has 20 people working on the
programme in Germany, including a team of
Chinese headed by MPC executive vice-
president Jiang Tong. About 100 people are
engaged on the project at Xian.
Thomas says MPC needs four airlines to
order a total of between 30 and 40 aircraft
before the programme can go ahead.
Thomas has no doubt about the Chinese
determination to honour their commitment
to the programme, so long as it can be shown
to be technically and commercially viable. It
is the first Chinese joint development
programme, as opposed to licence pro
duction deal, for a modern airliner. Thomas
says the enthusiasm demonstrated from
Government ministers downwards is
matched by the recent investment in modern
machinery and computer-aided design and
manufacturing equipment at Xian.
MBB has a technology transfer agreement
with CATIC on new materials and personnel
training, so Chinese engineers are already
gaining the mental tools for the task while
working at Hamburg and Bremen.
Commercial judgements at MBB now
assume that Daimler Benz will have a 40 per
cent shareholding in the company by mid
year, and Thomas expects "realistic
discussions" to take place on the MPC75.
Some form of German Government funding
for the project would appear to be a pre
requisite for its launch, but MPC knows it
cannot rely on the soft financial ride given to
Airbus.
The MPClS's maximum take-off weight is about three-quarters that of the Fokker 100. Its wing area is 80
per cent of the FlOO's, but span is nearly 90 per cent, giving a higher (10:1) aspect ratio for good economy
and airfield performance (S, 700ft in ISA + 1S°CJ
The MPC75 cabin has bigger seats and a wider aisle
than the A320
MPC 75 payload - range
(basic and extended - tange version)
12,000 -
•;>.;;:-
.-.,...;
°- 6,000
1,000 1,500
Range (n.m.)
2,500
Critical
technology
Although the MPC75 still sprouts the
propfan blades, regarded until recently as
the paramount symbol of high technology,
the MBB/Chinese design team is making a
critical reassessment of its propulsion
options. The propfan is still the "baseline"
powerplant for the MPC75, but its position
is not inviolable.
Similar scrutiny is now being applied to
all candidate new technologies for the pro
ject. MPC is well placed to do this, because
company president Juergen Thomas was
until recently senior vice-president indus
trial for Airbus, where one of his tasks was
to rationalise production and, on occasion,
to curb the engineers' enthusiasm to design
new and "better" things.
Without new technologies, the MPC75
would offer little that the slightly larger
Fokker 100 cannot do already, and with the
added benefit of a pedigree and a track
record.
With indiscriminate use of high tech
nology, however, MPC could alienate itself
from customers and fail to achieve the
$200,000-per-seat first-cost target which
the company believes to be critical to the
success of the project. Thomas says
improvements are worthless unless oper
ators can make money from them.
He is confident that propfans can
become a sufficiently mature propulsion
technology by the mid-1990s, when the
MPC75 would enter airline service, but is
sceptical about what MPC regards as opti
mistic claims by Douglas about cabin noise
measured in its ultra-high-bypass test
programme with the General Electric
unducted fan (UDF). Active anti-noise
systems will be considered for the MPC75
cabin, but the low-frequency noise'of open
rotors will still pose a real challenge to
passenger comfort, and structural fatigue
resistance, according to Thomas.
Careful pylon design will be essential for
20 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 8 April 1989